Yah Science

So this term I am taking all science courses which rocks because I love science but sucks because that means I have a lab report and/or midterm every week till the end of the term. Not even joking. But honestly we have done some really sweet things in lab so far.

Bio 4200
This class is basically a six hour lab every week. At first I didn't like the idea but know I love it. It is pretty much the best class I have taken. Our first set of experiments was centered around Bioflim. So in other words shower scum. Yeah pretty gross. Well being my self.... I clean my bathroom every week so there was no scum in my shower. So of course I just went to Nathan's to get some. Well after 12 experiments my sample of DNA is off to be sequenced to identify the bacteria that I isolated. Yep that's right the DNA that was isolated from Nathan's shower... again...GROSS!!!! The coolest part tho is that we got to name our plasmids. So yes I know I have a plasmid that I named in the science community. It is pretty wicked. So if anyone is reading about pGAP... its mine and it came from Nathan's shower. Here is some proof that DNA is there for those who choose not to believe me.

The band that is really bight in the 7th well.... that is it... 16s rDNA from Nathan's shower. I must say it is pretty cool but so gross too.

Bio 3420

So the lecture for this class is pretty good. But the lab... it kind of sucks. But we won't talk about that. This past week we cut open a frog to play with its leg muscles to observe how muscles contract. So yeah it was cool to see a muscle move on its own when you sent electric current through it. But it was pretty creepy when a dead frog leg moves when you don't touch it...even with electiric current. So yeah next time you see raw chicken... that is what a muscle looks like and just think of if moving and twitching all by its self... I know I will. At the end of that lab we got to cut into the frog more and look at the organs and what not... but when we looked at the heart.... it was still beating!!! The frog was dead, it had no head but it's heart still was beating normally.... how CREEPY is that. Yeah we were told that the frog was killed that morning and that once a frog dies its heart may beat for 8 hours after the fact..... so creepy but so cool!!!!

I decided not to but up the lab pictures on this one.... figured most of you didn't even like reading about it.

So yeah that is what is exciting right now. Well I had better get back to studying and lab report writing. Later.

Engagment Photos

Here are the engagment photos that Hope Litwin took for us. Hope you all enjoy.

High Shcool Lied to You.....

As I entered into this school year my roommate Katelynn and I were just remembering back to what we learned in University and what we learned in high school. We remembered how in many of our classes how our profs would tell us "now we are going to have to reteach you this because high school lied to you.... you are old enough to know the truth." Now usually this so called truth meant "This is going to get a heck of a lot harder and you are going to hate this class from this point on." So last night Katelynn and I decided that we should write short stories about the lies we learned. So here is one of them.

Jared was a young excited man who was going to go to University to become a chemist. He decided to go to the University of Lethbrigde because of the awesome slogan that a beautiful and intelligent Biochemist came up with, "Come to the U of L and you will be blown away" Jared had been so excited all summer with the thought of chemistry. He love school, he did well in school, his life was school. Finally the first day of university arrived. He was so excited for his chem 1000 class. The first couple of weeks were a breeze. After all, he was the top of his class back in high school why should things be any different in university.

Then then one day everything changed. Jared got his midterm back and he couldn't believe his eyes... a 48%. How could this be? Well now Jared believed that university was like high school so since he didn't have to study in high school why should he start now. Still in shock the prof told the class that they could make up a bit of the midterm by doing an assignment. So Jared jumped on the idea... he could do an assignment how hard could it be? Well Jared was right it wasn't hard at all. It was just solving pH. So like any first year student does they just solve everything using pH=-log(some number). A week later he got his assignment back. In complete shock Jared had received a zero on the assignment. He when to to see the prof to get this all sorted out. The prof responded back to him "where you not listening in class, high school lied to you.... you are old enough to know the truth pH does not equal the negative log. Life is more complicated then that you know. You need to calculate in activities using ionic strengths."

Jared tried to keep up from that day forward but he just couldn't get the words "high school lied to you" out of his head. It hunted him day and night. He did worst and worst on his tests and assignments. Finally one day he decided that he was going to jump off the bridge because high school lied to him. The End.

Note: The ending of this story did not happen to Jared. However, high school has lied to many university students for years. High school taught you basics that are now thrown out of the window with yesterdays garbage. If you are a university student who feels like high school lied to you... I am sorry... but suck it up... it has happened to all of us... no joke. However, if you feel like you need to jump off the bridge because of this truth..... please talk to some one to get help. It is OK.... your life will get better... its only school.

Ok Ok... I will do a blog. I decided to do a mini blog so that Kristie will be happy :D

I have just started my job this week. Now I would tell you all what I was doing but.... I can't. No serious... I can't.... it is top secret. I can only tell you that I work for Shell. No one can know where I work or what I do. I even get a special access card. And yes... it does make me feel important. I am actually really enjoying it right now... a very nice change from exams and lab reports.

In other news... I had a great weekend. On Saturday I was visited by my three favorite people in Lethbridge, Kristie, Nathan's mom and of course Nathan. My Saturday started off with Kristie phoning me and accusing me of still being in bed... which I wasn't... who could sleep knowing she was coming to Calgary. (for her side of the weekend visit Kristie's blog) Things started off pretty good until we went to Zellers. We were looking for some bedding for Mrs. Friesen. Then Kristie and I turned around and she was gone... yes gone. Kristie and I started to freak out.... we were lost in Zellers... so naturally we started to cry for help. Finally after forever we heard " Would the mother of two twenty somethings please collect your crying children at costumer services". After a couple of minutes we were saved and ready to keep shopping.

So next we headed to the bridal strip mall. Pretty much everything you ever want... dress, Tex, hair dresser, travel agent, swim wear and a restaurant.

We then headed to Ikea so that I could give Kristie amazing ideas on how to decorate her house. Apparently she didn't like my ideas since she only came out with a candle holder. I was just trying to help :D After Ikea I was driven home.... wow Calgary traffic can be horrible on Saturdays. It took us almost an hour to get to my house when normally it would take 20-30min. And then my family wasn't even home and I had no key. Lucky for my neighbour had a key and was home. So I was able to get into my house and was welcomed by a ringing phone.... it was Nathan telling me that he was in Calgary :D But that part of the story is for another day. I'm going to go do some pilates. Later :D

Science is for Cool People

So I am done classes now and I thought I would do one of these before it got super crazy with exams.

For anyone thinking of taking biochemistry... do it with HJ. He is one of the best prof that I have had so far. The last day of class he showed us this sweet u-tube video for the synthesis of a protein. And no I'm not a nerd... it was sweet. Now keep in mind this was done in the 70s. This fact explains A LOT.... not kidding. You pretty much have to be high and on acid to understand. Yeah it defiantly was a summer research group too.... science has come along way in terms of how much we know and how we present our research finding. Hope you all enjoy even if you aren't a science person you will get a kick out of this video. Hehee GTP is the best!!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9dhO0iCLww

Also in Physical chemistry on Friday we were told that we would be having a surprise topic and that it would be testable so we had to show up. So we got there and Wayne our lab instructor was there giving back lab reports. So then class started and Wayne didn't leave... which is weird because he doesn't ever come to class. So our prof wrote on the white broad what our topic was.... The Physical Properties of...... ICE CREAM!!! Seriously the best class ever. First we learned about the structure of ice cream and how it is made. Then Wayne made raspberry ice cream for the entire class using liquid nitrogen. So cool and so so very good.

Any yes liquid nitrogen ice cream is perfectly fine for you. In fact it is a higher quality of ice cream is now starting to be made with liquid nitrogen.

This is another video that I thought was really cool. It was shown to us last term but I think it is still really cool.

http://aimediaserver.com/studiodaily/videoplayer/?src=harvard/harvard.swf&width=640&height=520

I don't know after seeing this kind of stuff it makes me love science even more. When I feel stressed about exams I just watch stuff like this and it makes me love science all over again. I don't know... watching videos like the inner workings of the cell just show me how amazing God is and how stupid evolution is. I mean how could something so complicated like that happen by chance and over millions of year. I mean how stupid is that. God is amazing and He has made the everything so cool and I just love how people get to find new things to show how amazing He is.

Well I had better "study" and by study I mean watch my soap opera... yeah its another one of those stress couping tools. Hope exams go well for all. Later!